


Tingo

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fights, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5171636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He drives her insane, and she makes him miserable, and she wonders how they ever thought it could work."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tingo

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Set early S5. No spoilers beyond an established Caskett relationship

 

 

* * *

 

_Tingo_ (Pascuense): To gradually steal all the possessions

out of a neighbor's house by borrowing and not returning.

* * *

 

 

He drives her insane. She's known that for years. Four years, to be exact, but now she's up close and personal with it. All the things he does wrong that are _so_ cliché, like where he squeezes the toothpaste and the way he folds wet towels in half before he drapes them over the rack, so they never dry quite right.

And for all that—for every sitcom stereotype he plays out, day after day—he's too _careful._ She catches him turning labels, trying to replace things exactly as he found them. Meticulously lining up glasses and squaring the corners of books and magazines and . . . whatever.

And it's not just stuff he's careful with, it's her. It's _them._ He's hesitant. He asks permission to call. To drop by, if you can call it that. And when he asks _her_ over—when he asks her out to a movie or dinner or any of the dozens of things they've done together for years—he's so formal about it, so _careful,_ that she half expects a save-the-date card followed by an engraved invitation. And that drives her insane, too.

He knows it. Senses something's off, anyway, and it makes him miserable. It makes his shoulders slump when he thinks she's not looking and carves a _vee_ between his brows that even his broadest smile can't quite banish. And it makes _her_ miserable in turn. It drives her insane, because it's exactly what she was afraid of. That being together (whatever _that_ means) would ruin them. Ruin everything about them that _works_ in some perfect, nonsensical way.

But it hasn't. It doesn't. And in her saner moments she knows that. In the dark, with her chin tucked over his shoulder as they hold tight to each other, still gasping. In the morning sun falling across the bed in strips of gold, nothing is ruined. When they're leaning in across the kitchen counter, fiercely debating something or other—coffee or cartoons or immigration reform—they're still _them._ Sparking off one another like they always have. It's the opposite of ruined, then, and she _knows_ that.

But the rest of the time, he drives her insane, and she makes him miserable, and she wonders how they ever thought it could work.

 

* * *

 

She doesn't talk to him about it. He doesn't talk to her. Not about how careful _she_ is about everything. About clean up. Dishes scraped and rinsed and stacked in the dishwasher. Blankets folded and pillows plumped and returned to their precise, original places. Every trace of her presence carefully removed, and he's given up on even trying to protest. Even trying to tell her to just leave it and come sit or come to bed or just _be_ with him.

He doesn't talk to her about the things she does that drive _him_ crazy and there must be dozens of them. There _must_ be because that's how it is when you're long in the habit of being alone and used to your things—your _life_ —being just so.

And things go from bad to worse. He goes from miserable to sad, to lonely, even when she hasn't gone yet.

He's always waiting for her to go. She's always going. Resentful because she _has_ to, and he's always such a _child_ about it.

Except she doesn't _have to_ go _._ Not by any rule that exists outside her head, and really, who's the child here? Because there's no rule she could even articulate, though she feels closer to that point.

After all this time in therapy, sometimes that feels like all she ever is: Closer, but not there. Never actually _there,_ and this was a mistake. Leaping into this. Quitting her job and coming to him, soaked to the skin. Throwing herself headlong into something so important—something she wants _so badly_ to work. To last.

But it was a mistake to take that leap and now they're both paying for it. They're both paying dearly, all because she screwed up.

* * *

 

 

The end, when it comes, is stupid. She knows it's stupid. Some detached, already-in-mourning part of her knows, even through the blinding rage.

"What is this?"

Her body twists as she says it, two steps ahead of herself with her white-knuckled fist still closed around the knob of his sock drawer. She nearly pulls it off its track. As it is, she sets the dresser swaying. She hears something groan. Sees the drawer dangling out of the corner of her eye.

"This?" He's been writing. Still is writing, she'd guess from the absent smile he lifts in her direction. She might guess if fury left her any attention to spare.

But it doesn't. Fury leaves her nothing and she's shoving it at him. An old cameo-pink tube, not quite as long as her palm, the tiny black print that used to fill the back all but worn away now.

"This," she hisses. "What is _this_ doing _here_?"

"Were you going through my drawers?"

It's blank, mostly. The question. It's a confused parry and retreat after a moment of panic. A moment of recognition, and she knows him. She knows this. The shutters closing tight on who he really his. Mischief that he plays at on the surface. She _knows_ _him._ How alarmed he must be. How wary and miserable and tired of this. Fights that rise up ourselves of nowhere. That lay the groundwork for her going.

He must be so deadly tired of it. Lord knows she is, but she's past reason now. Past knowing him or herself or even how stupid it is.

"What else?"

She spins again, away from him this time. She clutches the tube tight enough that the corners of the stiff, crimped plastic cut into her palm. She looks around wildly like a sudden cache of stolen goods might tumble out from behind a secret brick at any moment.

"What else _what?_ "

He stands abruptly, his desk chair squealing in surprise. He follows. Peeks over her shoulder He's still playing. Poking at her, and she imagines him in another time and place. His hands hovering over her bare skin. Her rib cage arcing up as he smiles wickedly and draws his palms another fraction of an inch away.

_Use your words, Beckett_

It's a different kind of fire entirely, but it hardly matters. It's flame. More. All-consuming.

"What else did you take?" The words drop one by one. Heavy. Searing. "Did you go through _my_ drawers? My medicine cabinet? Mail? E-mail?"

"Kate."

His posture shifts. Everything about him shifts. He's not playing any more. He's angry, too, but he takes hold of it in both hands. He's serious. Careful and controlled, and everything feels upside down. It's maddening. Terrifying, and the world's in flames.

She's speechless with it. Fury and fear. Her hand opens, desperate white impressions cut deep in her palms. They fill with red. They rise as angry welts and the tube falls to the floor.

He watches its descent, wide-eyed. He mouths her name again, reaches out weakly with one hand, but she's going by then.

She's gone, and it's miserable and awful and _so_ stupid.

* * *

  

The knock comes later than she thought it would. Long enough after she thought it would that she's started to think it won't come at all. That there won't be some limp kind finality to this. Mumbled apologies and nodding agreement that they were better off as friends. Better off as whatever they were before she ruined everything.

But it does come. The knock. Just when she's on the verge of conviction that she's glad that it didn't—glad that it won't—she rushes to the door. Makes a liar of herself as she throws it open.

He comes in without asking. Without a word from either of them. Endless space opening wide even as his body practically brushes hers as he steps by.

He has a bag. Something lumpy and awkward by the look of it. Something he must gave thrown together in a rage of his own, and she's all-over sick, nervous energy. It's over. Nothing in the world screams _over_ loud and clear like that bag as he sets it none-too-gently on the hall table.

"That's all of it," he says flatly. He's angry. Of course he's angry, and of course that's what she wanted. Except she doesn't want it now. She sees herself for the fool she is. The half-broken fool she is, and she doesn't want this.

"Castle . . ."

He talks over her like he hasn't heard. Like he's done listening. "I never went through your things."

Her head swivels to the hall table. She can't help it. She's _sorry_ the instant his shoulders sag. The instant he lets out a sigh and the last bit of something like hope along with it.

"I didn't."

He mumbles this time. Defeated as he reaches into the bag. He holds up a book she'd loaned him. A book she realizes too late that he'd slid in among his own best-loved things. A place of honor, but that's over. He finds the gap in her shelf. Goes to it directly without having to look, and slides it flush with the neighboring, well-worn spines.

"I didn't mean . . ." He pauses, his head bent over bag's gaping mouth. Miserable hesitation this time. "It wasn't some diabolical plan."

He finds his resolve again and grabs an armful of things. Pens and a copy of the _New Yorker_ she'd kept around for months in the vain hope of getting to read it sometime. A couple of flour sack towels with vintage fashion models sketched around the border. An anonymous "gift" that had showed up on her desk around the time the boys had found out about her short-lived modeling career. A lesser elephant from a high-up bookshelf she can't reach in her bare feet.

He moves from place to place with purpose, replacing each item. Things she never missed from here. Things she remembers from _there_ in a background kind of way, now that she thinks about it. Now that her attention is painfully fixed on each and every one in turn.

He circles back to the table. To her and not to her. He roots around in the bag again. Mostly empty now, but he finds something wedged in the corner tugs. It comes away suddenly, leaving him brandishing a slender length of silver. It takes her a second to recognize it. A spoon that doesn't match anything else in her silverware drawer.

"It's not even mine." She blurts it out along with a choking kind of sound that might've been a laugh once. He looks bewildered by it. Hurt. "The break room. It wound up in my pocket. I've been meaning to . . ."

She trails off, as it dawns on her. She's had it for months. And for months she's been washing it and setting it out each night so she'll remember to take it back. But she's always in a hurry. Always scrambling for the thing near at hand, and of course he'd pick up on it. Of course he'd notice her always stirring her coffee with _that_ spoon in particular.

"Ah." He says it to himself. Underscores it with a dismal nod as he sets it on the counter carefully enough that it doesn't make a sound. He makes his way back. Upends the bag this time, and tips the cameo-pink tube into his palm. The last thing.

"I was making the bed." He says it with a quiet, inward smile. A warm memory, and it hurts that it's nothing more to either of them. It hurts unbelievably to think it might've been the last time and she missed it. He raises his eyes to hers, then. He's trying to share it with her. The moment. The smile. He's trying to make it easier. "Your pillows were everywhere, as usual."

It makes her laugh. Something closer than she managed on her own, anyway, but it's followed close on by another pang. Longing and regret radiating through her.

"I didn't mean to take . . ." He heaves a breath in and sets the tube on the table. At arm's length, like he's afraid he'll snatch it up again. "You were quicker in the shower than usual. You surprised me, and I just shoved it in my pocket and I figured I'd put it back later, and then it seemed important and . . . "

"My mom's," she says faintly. Miserably, because it's too late for this. Too late to really open herself, and still she can't stop. "We left . . . my dad and I left everything the way it was at first. Her closet. Their bathroom."

Memories come flooding back. An old yellow hairbrush that some roommate's dog had chewed. Strands of chestnut and grey tangled in the bristles. It chokes her. All that feeling, but she stumbles on again.

"I don't know what made me realize how bad it was with my dad." She shakes her head. "I feel like I didn't. Like I woke up in the middle of clearing it all out. Boxing it up and driving it to Goodwill." She reaches out for the tube. Lets her fingers brush over it. "It was in the back of the vanity drawer. The only thing left . . ."

"I'm sorry. It seemed important," he says again. Chastened this time. Guilt, and that's not what she meant. "I should never have . . ." 

He breaks off. He looks at her for what feels like the first time. Not just now. Not just in this painful moment, but the first time since his body pressed hers into the door. The first time since he asked.

_So – you're on board with this, right? It's not some oh-I-quit-my-job-I-almost-died-now-I'm-in-crisis thing?_

_No – not for me._

_Okay. Me neither._

And it isn't. It never was. And now, at the end, she knows that. That it wasn't a mistake, or if it was, she doesn't _care,_ because . . . _Because_.

"I don't know how to do this." The quiet words pull her out of miserable reverie and into something worse. Into the final chapter. He twists the cloth bag in his hands, not looking at her anymore. "I don't know how to play it cool. Like I don't want . . . I'm _sorry._ " There's too much feeling in the word. Too much for five little letters to carry. "I don't know why I thought . . . " He lifts a hand toward the bookshelf. Toward the coffee table and the kitchen and the stupid little cameo-pink tube. His hand falls away, his gaze dropping along with it. "I was trying not to scare you off, believe it or not. Because I know—I _know_ you have doubts, and you're independent, and things were _so_ bad between us before the storm, and I go overboard and you . . . I know you need time— _we_ need time—to get used to . . ."

It unravels somewhere along the way. As she's standing there, miserable, the knot of everything unravels and she sees it's all there. In his words and her silence. There's fear and longing and anger and stubborn hope. It's there in him and there in her, and it's not careful. It's wonderfully _not careful_ and she's back in the moment. Back on his doorstep, reaching for him. Leaping.

"I love you," she says, walking into his arms. She keeps her head down. Buries her face in his chest as he goes still and wordless with surprise. Shock, and she winds her arms around him tightly. Fiercely. "I'm _in love_ with you, Castle. Hopelessly." She lifts her face to his and doesn't care that her cheeks are burning. She kisses him, reveling in the unguarded _want_ she gives and he gives right back, holding on to her, clumsy and just as fierce. "I love you, even though you're a thief."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading.


End file.
